


clink, clink, clink

by hvmdrvm



Category: Hyper Light Drifter
Genre: Gen, mild descriptions of slavery and gore
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-01
Updated: 2016-06-01
Packaged: 2018-07-11 15:20:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,509
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7057903
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hvmdrvm/pseuds/hvmdrvm
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The drifter visits the temple in the east.</p>
            </blockquote>





	clink, clink, clink

     The eastern sun reflects off a city cradled in blue water. The fountains and tiles have been scrubbed until nearly white, and the drifter’s hands ache as if he himself held the rag. The moss squishes beneath his feet and the columns decay over his head. He steps lighter than usual, to keep his footsteps from sounding too loudly in the open space. When he speaks to the tense woman by the worn gazebo, she pauses mid-sentence and the two of them direct their attentions towards the end of the corridor, where a soldier in a bamboo hat dumps one of her slain countrymen onto a pile of corpses. The drifter had noticed the quietude, the woman’s hushed voice. Now he understands. 

     “…And his skin is infested with moss,” she finishes, now at a hiss. “Even as we speak, he rots. There can’t be long left.”

     The conqueror may have something he wants. He may have to kill him to get to it. But he can’t make promises, so the drifter only nods and continues on his way.

     The bodies expel their stenches as they rot. The blood stagnates in the moss and rusts upon the tile. The drifter presses his scarf against his nose, but his stomach still churns as a cluster of carrion flies scatter upon his approach and the breeze waves the smell towards him. Against a wall he bends over to cough, and bloodstains appear where he pulled his cloak to his face.

#

     The city is not so desolate; scuffles break the isolation often enough. In the underground corridors, he learns quickly to not mistake the light of an enemy torch for the halo of the black hound.

 # 

     Later, the drifter finds slightly more companionable silence in the sanctuary of a crumbling temple. He kneels by a slave hammering away at their cuffs, who initially edges further up against the basin’s wall until the drifter again crumples over coughing and asks, hoarse from the fit, _what happened here?_

     Together they lounge in despondency at the shrine, and the drifter listens as the slave talks. Their story echoes amid gentle, crackling lantern fire above the basin, the slow rise and fall of a bundle of rags beneath the pews, and the slave’s chains ringing as they continue to beat its cuffs with the stone. This sound, too, is soft, almost rhythmic.

     “Even as we speak, he rots,” finishes the slave. “There can’t be long left.”

     The drifter continues to not make promises.

     Instead, he pulls his cloak tighter around him, feeling garish amid the rags. He tries to hunch over, and shudders as his throat rattles. He reaches for the canteen at his waist, takes a sip to clear his throat, and the sudden force of his body turning away to cough sends him slumped across the shrine, drooling blood onto the tile.

      None of the other slaves stir from their reveries. The slave next to him watches, but continues knocking gently at their chains. As an afterthought of courtesy, the drifter wipes away his mess with his cloak. The slave’s eyes remain on him.

     “Is it contagious,” asks the slave.

      The drifter shakes his head.

      “Could I have a drink of your canteen, then? I haven’t had clean water since the first attack.”

      Not unkindly, the drifter gestures with his canteen to the basin behind them, tilting his head in question.

      “That is not for worshippers to drink,” the slave scolds. Then their voice softens. “We are a religious people, and I hold to that still.” They beckon the drifter’s attention towards the door of the church. “And outside? You have seen what the invaders have done. The blood of my countrymen has tainted the lake, and even now the soldiers lie in wait beneath the surface. The taste makes me nauseous. Lend me a drink, please, just one.”

      The drifter wipes the rim of his canteen and hands it to the slave, who takes it with both hands. The slave takes one gulp, then two, then stares at the lip of the canteen for several more moments before handing it back to the drifter with their head down. 

      “Look at me,” laments the slave. “I raised my children towards abstinence and moderation, I encouraged the same for my neighbors, and here I can barely share water with the stranger who offers it to me without losing my self-control.”

      The stone the slave was using lies abandoned on the ground. They are staring, now, at an old mosaic depicting a cup-bearer kneeling before its superior. Both figures look content.

      “My family prayed here,” says the slave. “My parents, and then my own mate and children. I was anointed here upon my birth, and my passage to adulthood. Perhaps I shall die here.”

      The drifter presses his canteen back into the slave’s palms and retreats into his cloak. “Have the rest.”

      The slave drinks.

      The drifter takes back the empty canteen. He says, “You’ve taken the last of my water. Now I ask you to live in return, so my gift is not in vain.”

      Then he lowers his head. “Please.”

      Then he says, “Your family.”

      “I _had_ a family,” says the slave. Tears are appearing in their eyes, as if their bodies had been empty before drinking from the drifter’s canteen. “When my city was attacked, my mate was at the crèche with our children. I have not seen them since then.”

      “There are plenty of survivors.”

      “And look what state we are in,” the slave counters, gesturing to the rest of the temple with one hand. The other hand has taken up the stone again. They have begun to hammer away at their chains again, harder this time. “And see how we are slaughtered. Their tyrant sovereign wears us for robes and sends us away having been skinned alive, if we haven’t been beheaded for pendants. I’ll be comforted knowing my family drowned instead.”

      The drifter has nothing to say to that, so he keeps his head lowered.

      “Why are you here?” asks the slave. “We may have been a paradise once, but most travelers find out soon enough that times have changed.”

      “There is something I need. The tyrant may be in the way.”

      “There is no negotiation with him,” says the slave.

      “I know.”

      The bundle of rags shifts beneath the pews. A pair of eyes stare at the two of them before slowly curling back into itself.

      A sort of dim hope flashes in the back of the slave’s eyes. “So you will…”

      “I cannot promise anything,” says the drifter. He spreads his cloak to the slave. It is infested with his blood. “As we speak, I, too, am rotting.”

      He gets up to leave; he has grown increasingly anxious over the duration of the conversation, as if the black hound is waiting for him outside the temple. That, and his innate desire to keep moving prevails over his perpetual fatigue.

      “Wait,” calls the slave. “Your canteen.”

      The drifter feels under his cloak. It’s there, tied to his waist. He turns back to the slave.

      “At least refill it here, at the basin, so you don’t have to drink from the lake. You can boil it over the lantern if it pleases you.”

      “It is sacred to you.”

      “It is blessed under the power of my people’s gods. But it doesn’t matter much to a stranger like you, does it? It would weigh more heavily on my soul to let you on your own after I’d had all your water. And besides, both of us would prefer that you live.”

      The drifter hesitates.

      “This is all we have to give,” says the slave. “Maybe it can heal what ails you.”

      The drifter doesn’t believe them, but he needs water, so he takes up the offer. As he bows and takes his leave, the others watch him with their dark, sunken eyes. The sound of the stone clinking against the slave’s cuffs follows him out the door.

#

     The tyrant’s people have not yet settled into the city they have conquered. Beyond the temple, anyone alive is an invading soldier. The children of their species can only survive in the water surrounding the city, and the thought makes the drifter wonder what benefit the tyrant had seen in waging war if his subjects could not raise their families on land.

      Eventually, the drifter takes a moment’s rest in a secluded alcove between the willows. He watches the water shift irregularly before him, his free hand tapping the handle of his blade as he takes a sip from his canteen. He tries to read the water’s movement, if it is primarily the breeze or if there are tadpoles swimming beneath the surface. A little way off, a skinned corpse rests by the ruins of a canoe. A cluster of eggs, clear and with the sheen of gelatin, jostle each other at the crook of its neck. Like a crèche.

      All is quiet. He decides to take the time to look back over the map.

**Author's Note:**

> Took some creative liberties on the scenery. Especially that last part there — that doesn’t actually happen. Sorry??


End file.
